Close your eyes, and take a few deep breaths into the belly. And, really feel your body. Be aware of your body sitting wherever you are. Make sure your back is quite straight without being rigid. This isn’t about being rigid – it’s being straight, but flexible. Take your attention to the top of your head. Feel the sensation on the top of your head without your mind coming in between and judging it as good or bad, or right or wrong. Just feel the direct sensation without visualizing. Feel the sensation of your eyelids on your eyes, your breath going through your nostrils, and keep breathing into the belly, grounding yourself in your body. Feel you mouth, your lips, your jaw, your chin, the back of your neck. Feel your shoulders.

Even if you have tightness in any part of your body, don’t try and relieve it – just sit with that tightness. Watch your reaction to it – feel it – don’t avoid it – don’t try and change it. Go to your left shoulder, and go down your arm to your left elbow. Then, down to your left hand, and feel you hand, and feel you thumb, and each finger. Then, go to your right shoulder. Go down your arm to your right elbow. Then down to your right hand and feel your hand. Feel you thumb, your first finger, second finger, third finger, and your fourth finger. Feel your whole right arm. Feel both arms and both hands. Then, take your attention to your chest, and as you breathe in and out through the nose, feel the gentle movement of your chest with the breath. It’s a very gentle movement. Then, go down to the abdomen. This is the most tangible place in the body to feel the breath, to be with the breath. You can feel your abdomen rising and falling with your breath.

Feel your thighs, your left knee and your right knee, your shins, and your calf muscles, your left foot, and your right foot. Then take your attention to your spine, and really feel your spine, from the top of the spine down the back to the bottom of the spine. Every now and again, just gently straighten the spine.

Meditation is not necessarily about relaxing. You’re going to feel a lot of tension at times in your body. But, keep your body as still as possible. It’s about watching thinking – not trying to stop thinking, but understanding the thinking process. And, by keeping your body still, you can see more clearly that thinking is just a movement away from here, from now. And, even though your body is not reality, it’s the closest thing to reality you have in this existence. So, it’s a very powerful thing to use. This meditation is all about becoming more and more grounded here in your body. So, each time you realize that you’ve been thinking, lost in the past – and all thinking is of the past – it can’t be new - it’s about using the past to create this illusory security in the illusory future. So, each time you realize you’ve been in this illusion, bring the attention back to the rise and the fall of the abdomen with the breath. You’ll probably need to do this again, and again, and again. So, the breath becomes your mantra. The breath becomes your anchor, your anchor in your body which is here, now.

There’s no part of your body that’s somewhere else. It’s all here, right now. This practice is all about realizing this fact, “I’m simply here. I’m not in the past. I’m not in the future.” Thinking creates this illusion of time, this illusion that there’s a past and a future. But in truth, in reality, there is no time. Even the body, in the absolute sense, is not reality. But, you need to become so grounded in the body that eventually you’re able to let it go – let go of the attachment to the body. Meditation is about preparing the body for now, for here, for the shock of reality. So, keep it as simple as possible. Just keep bringing your attention back to the rise and the fall of the abdomen with the breath. And watch, without moving. This is the purest action you can take, by staying still, completely still...